Grieving

I have been giving some thought to grieving lately.

In the spring of 2006, we left our church because of questions about the handling of parish funds and the resulting hard feelings and ugliness (I was on council and supported the investigation, but it didn't make things any easier); the kids' school, which was affiliated with the church, closed; one of my uncles died of cancer, and the other, a very vital person, died in a house fire; my old dog's hips were getting worse, and he would get down and be unable to get up, so I made the choice to have him put to sleep. That May, my father died, in June my mother moved into an apartment, only to decline to the point where she moved into a nursing home in August. In July, we moved from our little house, leaving our friends and much-loved neighbors, to this house; our neighbors here are aloof or in the event on one, obnoxious and nosy.

Needless to say, I didn't have much time to process one event before the next one hit us. Now, nearly two years later, I'll be going along fine, only to have one of the events sneak up behind me and smack me in the head, saddening me.

People say that God doesn't give us any more than we can handle, but I disagree. If we had only what we could handle, why would we depend on each other, never mind on God. I guess I am a hard case--I had to be given a lot of hard challenges at once.